Category Archives: Frozen Desserts

The last few weeks have been some of the craziest imaginable. Aside from finally scheduling my big dissertation proposal exam (this June! eep!!) and rewriting one of my articles from scratch for re-submission to a journal, I have finally registered with the school for medical wrist treatment so I can hopefully type with all of you again soon–write replies, comment on your blogs, and everything else I miss.

I’ll be back in the game again soon, so don’t lose hope in me!

Somehow, in the midst of all this craziness, I still have stories. There’s something about storytelling that makes a girl put on Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” and want to dance around the room singing into a stalk of celery. Loudly. And very badly.

Last night, a bunch of us in the swim club trekked out to the beach for a bonfire. The evening air was cool but mild: even in March, all we wore were light jackets over our tank tops (sorry, East Coast friends!) and flip-flops as we watched the sun set over the shimmering ocean horizon.

It was the quintessential college experience. By the time we arrived, all of the fire pits had been taken, so a group of us (and by “us,” I mean definitively not me) used our bare hands to dig out a 2-foot deep pit before jamming in firewood, lighter fluid, a lighter, and as many marshmallows-on-sticks as we could manage to flambe at once.

Empty pizza boxes to keep the fire from flying away.

Open bags of chips and salsa scattered across the sand, being picked through by oh-so-many dirt-packed fingers.

Rolled-up skinny jeans and late night ocean dashes.

Sand in everything.

My parents–for whom the closest we have ever got to rugged improvisation was reserving one of those tent-style camping cabins instead of the room in the lodge with indoor plumbing–would have been positively scandalized.… Read more

Here in California, we’ve been saying this for about 11 months now, and winter still has not come. I don’t think it has visited our neck of the woods since about the Ice Age, and even then I suspect it let us off easy.

This is lucky because my running shoes have been pounding the pavement quite a bit lately. Yesterday, I did a(n excruciatingly mellow) 13-mile run through Beverly Hills, jogging through posh Museum Row, the highly upscale Rodeo Drive, and making a pit stop at my favorite Harry Potter and Dr. Who-themed store, Whimsic Alley. I even ran a few circles around neighborhoods where celebrity homes are reportedly nestled–I did a Google search for fun and found that the web actually does a surprisingly good job keeping their exact locations Unplottable, probably for the better.

The most exciting creature I encountered was a black cat blinking at me from inside a gated house that looked like a 15th-century Spanish castle–though I did keep pretty good pace when another runner and I kept hitting the same traffic lights….until he turned around at mile 3 after informing me that “that was about as much as he was good for, though being chased by a pretty girl made him wish he could go further.” Don’t we all, chump. Don’t we all.

By the end of my run, I was sweating bullets and infinitely glad I’d donned a sleeveless. I’m not sure my tank top/beach shop attire would stand the 30-below weather some of you are experiencing right now, though. What’s it like in your neck of the woods? Feel free to shame my sun-tanned California bum…

The delay of true winter can only mean one thing around here: smoothie season. When Williams-Sonoma reached out to me asking whether I’d like to participate in their Smoothie Week–and to create the weirdest or most unconventional smoothie I could come up with–of course I was all hands on board!… Read more

‘Tis the season for being good commercial consumers, voracious listeners of 24/7 holiday music, and hopeless romantics who watch ABC Family 25 Days of Christmas movie marathons while indulging in a giant bowl of homemade pumpkin spice ice cream.

I’m as crazy about the holiday season as the next person. Yes, mass commercialism sucks balls, but unless you’re absolutely determined to be cynical about hot chocolate and fuzzy feelings and hot chocolate and great holiday classics such as Elf or How the Grinch Stole Christmas–and let’s face it, who can be cynical about any of these things?–the holidays rock. Period.

One of my absolute favorite part of the holidays–apart from the food and the movies and “Baby, It’s Cold Outside” playing on repeat–is that we get a chance to make up all the things we forgot to do during the other 11 months of the year. This includes small things like gift-giving and thoughtfulness, but it also includes big things like donating clothes to the needy and volunteering at the local soup kitchen. Christmas may have evolved into a corporate sham: but just as “nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent,” the companies have found it impossible to suck the holiday spirit completely dry of its moral prerogative, too.

We all know that one person who gives selflessly and un-self-consciously all year long. Back in college, I had a friend who always stopped for the homeless on the streets. Sometimes he would step out of his way to buy a bag of donuts or a box of takeout and offer that instead of cash, since you don’t need to worry about what someone will do with pre-bought food. He never flinched from a dirty outstretched hand or shied away from a plea for spare change, the way I sometimes do.… Read more

I know many of you may be relatively new readers at Wallflour Girl. If so, welcome back! I’ve had the opportunity to meet and chat back & forth these past weeks with so many amazing bloggers like Karen, Allison, Courtney, Matt, Monet, Rachel, and Zainab, who are all gems (you need to check out their blogs now, pronto!). Meeting new faces and writing voices is possibly my favorite part of being a desserts blogger, so please stay to say hi because I’d love to meet (or simply hear from) you!

But let’s be real. My other favorite part is probably your favorite part of blogging, too. And that’s the ice cream.

How many of you out there don’t own an ice cream machine? Is your hand raised like mine is? It’s officially summer and I’m not sure whether this is a good thing, but hey…welcome to the no-churn club!

As a homely dessert maker with little need for appliances (and let’s be frank–even less money with which to buy them), I never invested in an ice cream machine. For me, that’s a good hundred bucks or more that I could be spending on minor other things like, oh, I don’t know, food and shelter and clothing and books.

So while I love all the wonderful ice cream recipes swirling around the internet these days as a hot summer blossoms upon us, I’m always a little crestfallen when I click through and see the line: “Place all ingredients in ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer’s instructions.”

I mean, that’s like telling me that Winnie the Pooh at Disneyland isn’t actually a real character, but simply a disgruntled high school student stuffed into a suffocatingly hot suit. Where’s the magic in that?

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose, by any other name would smell…

Just as sweet.

Call me wallflower girl. Does that sound sweet to you?

It’s always been a source of minor discomfort to me how fast I can turn from the happy locus of attention among a group of friends to a complete, total wallflower in other social situations. Even when I’m ostensibly happily immersed in a large-group conversation, I can just as easily be that awkward person standing between two people who are having a really great discussion.The only things that make it slightly less great are that…

1) they’re having the discussion across you instead of with you,

2) you’re already part of the circle and can’t leave without seeming rude, so you have to stand there and politely nod at some neutral viewing space between the two people with a look as glazed as a fresh donut,

3) the said conversationists will inevitably give you an acknowledging glance every, oh, half a minute or so, to let you know that they know you’re still there. And that they’re maybe trying to include you. But you’ve been so busy staring at the back of somebody else’s head for the past 30 seconds that you don’t know what they were talking about anyway, and so you just smile.

4) You find out you were smiling while they were talking about something super serious. Like the resurgence of the bubonic plague in a remote corner of New Zealand or something. And then you just feel pretty dumb.

Social situations and I can sometimes get along like, say, water and oil that has caught on fire. For your reference, apparently you’re not supposed to throw water on a stovetop on which oil has flamed up. Instant flambe.… Read more

It’s probably rather belated to be announcing this via the world wide ether, but since yesterday (August 12th) was my birthday, I’m claiming my birthday-ial prerogative to say what I want, and–

–and there goes the punch line. Oops. My friends always did tell me I was the worst joke-teller in the world. Guess these things don’t really change with age, huh?

Anyway, Happy Belated Birthday, Me!

I never really understood the people who get really, really melancholic when their birthday tumbles around like a jolly rolly-poly each year. The only living creature that’s allowed to get marginally depressed about a day that’s all about celebrating you, in my opinion, is Eeyore, and that’s only because he A.A. Milne is a genius, may he rest in peace. Plus, he–that is, the donkey–is just so darn cute.

Of course, I can only imagine what Eeyore would say in that slow, gloomy voice of his if he saw this cake (I’ll tell you why in a second):

Okay, here’s the secret: I didn’t actually get to eat any yet.

Thanks, Eeyore. I can feel your gloomy sympathetic vibrations. (Haunted Mansion reference, anyone? No? Okay, never mind…I’ve obviously been reading too much of the amazing Disneyland Encyclopedia I got myself as an early “birthday present.”)

This is the world’s best, most nostalgia-filled ice cream cake ever known to mankind. I exaggerate. And again, I cite my belated-birthday-prerogative to do so. It’s the best. Period. Mocha almond fudge ice cream stuffed inside a smooth, I-don’t-know-to-this-day-how-they-do-it-chocolate-ganache/frosting with green icing and frosted with chopped nuts. YUM.

If anyone has any ideas about how I can put Baskin Robbins out of business by replicating this frosting, I would not be opposed at all.

That being said, as a very loyal customer…ahem…

I ask for this cake every single year we’re at home for my birthday.… Read more

The following is a faithful account of my rather tenuous encounter with airport security as I was flying back to school last holiday season.

I was armed with your standard wayfarer airline-approved duffel bag, a bunch of frozen Lunar New Year bamboo-wrapped glutinous rice bundles (if you have no idea what I’m talking about, it’s this), and some not-so-common-sense.

Security guy (holding up my duffel from the x-ray machine): Miss, is this your bag?

Me: Oh. Yeah, that’s mine.

SG: What’s in here?

Me: My clothes, some books I brought from home.

SG: Is that all?

Me: Yeah.

SG (pulling out the bundle of zongzi): Do you want to explain what this is, then?

(The zongzi have apparently, by this time, begun to defrost in my bag. They’re dripping like a very suspicious, heavily-wrapped bag of liquid uranium or something.)

Me: Oh. (Stopping short for a second. Probably looking very suspicious in general as I consider how to explain it, and then just decide–rather stupidly–not to bother.) Yeah. That too. I forgot about that.

c: Parents who need their children to listen to them. When you get the best of both worlds in a dessert course like this, it’s really hard to follow it up with a stern moral lecture like, “You can’t always have everything.” Because your rather sassy child will just point at their plate and give you a look that plainly says, “I just did.” And you won’t be able to say anything. Because it’s true.

If you’re not one of these people, or is you’re willing to suspend long-term doubts for the benefit of utter, complete short-term bliss, then I’d recommend you heading over to your kitchen right now. These are good.

To show you how good they are, we had a few of the cakes left but ran out of the custard. My friend, never one to be daunted by the apparent lack of resources, ran into the kitchen and came back bearing…tupperware. The tupperware that had carried my frozen custard, to be more precise. There was still some on the sides.

My friend picked up the cake…

…and smeared it around the entire tupperware box to get at the remaining custard that had been clinging obstinately to the sides and bottom.… Read more

It’s the fifth day of National Eat Dessert First! Month, an entire 31 days dedicated to a different themed dessert but, more importantly, getting those desserts onto our plates and palates! Each day will feature a new guest chef’s photos and recipes for each theme. If you’re interested in joining in for a dessert-tastic month, read the details at the Dessert Month Challenge post. It’s never too late to start!

If you’ve ever heard a holiday song–and I’m talking winter holidays here–blaring from some sacrilegious corner of the bus in the middle of August, chances are that one of your eyebrows will quirk up. You’ll probably roll your eyes as you try to ignore the strains of “Last Christmas” wafting in on the public transportation air behind you. After two choruses and a bridge, when the song reaches that really annoying part where the singers are warbling the title over and over again with as much grace as a shrieking fence-posted cat, you’ll most likely sigh really loud to let the person know, with a certain level of passive-aggressiveness, that they’re irking you. You will probably even shoot glances around you at your fellow passengers to confirm that they all have the same exasperated looks on their faces, and give them the knowing look when you guys make eye contact.

Got anything we can throw at Christmas Song Freak back there without being sued? their and your expressions will clearly say. And you’ll both shrug helplessly, caught in a state of mutual and lingering frustration, until Christmas Song Freak finally gets off at the second-to-last stop. Of course, you had to be going to the last.

Chances are also that that Christmas Song Freak is me. I mean, how many of us could there be in this world?

I love the winter holidays. I love everything about them–the holiday spirit, the holiday decorations, the holiday smiles and hugs, even the holiday-inspired-laughter-at-disgruntled-shoppers that I frequently indulge in. I’m generally a very easygoing person, and winter is just my season.

Summer is my season though, too. I love everything about the summer holidays–the summer reads, the summer beach runs, the summer weather, the summer outings, the summer nights spent in shorts and sleeveless shirts, the summer guys and dates…I’m generally a very easygoing person, and–yup, you guessed it–summer is just my season.… Read more